Everyone grieves differently, and the grief from an expected death can be very different from the grief of a shocking death. When my mother died in 1997 from lung cancer, we all knew it was coming and we did a lot of the processing in advance. We were sad, but also, at that point she died, we were glad her suffering ended. My sister died a few weeks ago in a car wreck. I am really struggling because it was such a shock. I still don't really believe she's gone.